


There's a club where you'd like to go/You could meet someone who's lost like you

by Birdbitch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Jedi Finn (Star Wars), M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22024273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: Finn takes off with Rey to develop his own Force abilities. Poe pines.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Wedge Antilles/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 16
Kudos: 205





	There's a club where you'd like to go/You could meet someone who's lost like you

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Mountain Goats.

Poe wakes up still tired and still sore. It's been happening like this more and more, the fear of being shot down leading to full-body tenseness, everything alert and on edge and ready to try to protect his guts from the inevitable. Being the general has only added a permanent pinch to his shoulders that he could have gone without. Wedge had tried giving him a little bit of comfort after they'd landed back on base by telling him that everyone who flew felt that, but the old man had been elsewhere, eyes still locked on Skywaker's old X-Wing. He wonders if it must have felt like seeing a ghost, but tries to push the thought out of his head in exchange for rolling out of bed one leg at a time.

There are stretches which Finn taught him that at least help with the tightness. 

Finn, who, Poe thinks, is still off doing some Jedi training with Rey. The worst evil in the galaxy has been defeated, but there's the problem of maintaining peace--a problem not even Leia was able to solve, and a problem which Poe knows is too big for just them. Since Finn's been gone, all Poe can think about in his spare time is how much easier things would be if he were back and they were working side by side again. BB-8 rolls up to him and trills, as if sensing the sudden melancholia, and Poe pats him. "Yeah. I'm getting up," he says. Getting up is an almost luxuriously long process now which consists of a not insignificant allotment of time in the fresher and an actual breakfast, even though he's still eating outside under the wing of one of the larger ships. He got about three breakfasts with Finn like this before he took off. 

"It's hard, you know," Wedge says. He doesn't sneak up on Poe, but appears like how Leia would. Before. Whenever Poe was having a moment of crisis--she would always know, and find him. She was close to his mother; Wedge Antilles would have known Poe's parents, too. "I don't know how we managed any of it, back then. I guess we didn't do half so well as we hoped we would." He's got a mug with hot coffee in it, same swill as what Poe and every other pilot on base has gotten used to sucking down every morning for as long as he can remember. 

"You Force-sensitive too, Commander?"

"Nah. You just have the same lines around your eyes they both did."

Leia and Luke. "You all couldn't have known," he says, and it's a diplomatic thing to say. 

"Maybe. Maybe not." Wedge shrugs and sits down on the log Poe's been using as a bench. 

"Were you upset when he left?" The question comes out without Poe even thinking about it, except that he knows--he wants to be able to compare what he's been feeling with at least some charted territory so he's not flying totally blind. He wants Finn to be a Jedi because it's to Finn as flying is to himself. He knows it. Rationally, he gets it. He's still hurt.

Wedge shifts a little, helps himself to some of the coffee still in Poe's pot of it. "Which time?" he asks. And that's right--Jedi disappearing act, starring Luke Skywalker. Poe had forgotten. "Because it was different each time. Different circumstances. We were different people." 

It's going to end up raining that night, Poe thinks. "First time." 

"That first time was when he deserted, after Hoth."

"Angry?"

"I thought he'd been killed," Wedge says in a voice which feels distant. And hadn't Poe felt that same way, looking at Finn through glass panes, waiting for him to wake up? Wedge laughs a little. "Now, I'm still having trouble believing he's actually gone." 

He wants to ask--did you love him?--but can't make his mouth form the question aloud. He knows the answer. He knows, because he's thinking about how it feels to be alone for the first time since having someone again, and because he's thinking about what-ifs, like what if Finn doesn't come back, or what if when he does, it's just a projection like Skywalker, or what if Poe ends up finding out that he's gone the same way Wedge did? What if in the chaos of everything, he missed the one shot to actually tell Finn? "He's my best friend," he settles on, and BB-8 whines in agreement. 

"He'll be fine," Wedge says. "From what I've heard, he does a good job taking care of himself. And he's got Rey with him."

"But you can't know that," Poe says. 

Wedge shrugs and stands up. "I can, because we got a transmission from the two of them overnight saying that they were due in sometimes this afternoon." He bends to give BB-8 a pat, as though the droid were a kid whose hair could be rustled. "You're a great pilot, Poe, and you've been in plenty of dogfights. You should know by now that if there's something you have to say to someone, you should get it out. The other side has always got an ace, too."

"Did you tell him?"

There's another smile there, but the lines at the corners of Wedge's mouth are deep. "Your astromech is cute," he says. "Thanks for the caf." 

And it starts raining, and Poe takes refuge in the Falcon. 

Finn wakes him up with a gentle push against his shoulder; Poe hadn't even realized that he fell asleep onboard. "Back already?" he asks, tries to smile, knows it comes out lopsided, untrue. Finn's hair is a little longer, and he's got a cut healing on his eyebrow, but he's in one piece. He's there and solid.

"Not for very long," he answers, keeping his volume down. "Lando said you'd be here."

"Looking for me?"

And Finn's smile is not lopsided, at all. "Looking for you," he answers, and Poe yawns and sits up. 

"I don't want to do this without you," he says. "The leadership thing. We make a good team."

"Good? I think the best."

"Yeah." He swallows, does feel the relief flooding him. "The best." 

The lights in the Falcon are dim; have been as long as Poe has known the ship, even though Lando claims they used to be brighter. "I need to keep exploring this thing," Finn says. 

Poe nods his head, closes his eyes again. "Yeah. Yeah, I know. I don't want to hold you back." 

"Poe? I want to try something."

"Go right ahead, buddy. I trust you." He's always trusted him, even when they first met, even when he had no reason to besides just knowing he had to. 

"You're gonna have to open your eyes."

When he does, he sees that he and Finn are both about five inches off the ground. It's a moment of surreality, and he glances between the ground and Finn's pleased face and himself. "How'd you do that without me even noticing?" he asks when they softly land back down. And he's overwhelmed and so proud of what Finn can do, mystified and amazed, and Finn must know, because he's smiling, and Poe is absolutely smitten with this man, knows that he can't leave here without saying something, anything, about it. "Finn," he whispers, "You're amazing."

Finn looks a little shy. "You know, you were the first person to make me actually believe that," he says, and he looks down. "I don't know how long the training is going to be. I don't even know if I'll be as powerful as Rey is, ever—"

"You don't have to be," Poe says. 

"I'll come back." 

"You can't leave yet. You guys just got back here." He swallows, and grabs Finn's hand, and it is warm and calloused from blasters and from years of holding weapons that he should have never been made to use in the first place. "Finn." 

Maybe even in the low light there's something desperate written across Poe's face, because Finn moves, pulls his hand away for one heartbreaking moment before it's back, both hands cupping Poe's face. "You're amazing too," Finn says.

"I get people killed. I'm no good at this on my own—" 

Finn kisses Poe first, like he's been waiting to do that for years, and Poe holds on, gets one hand at the back of Finn's neck and the other tugging him closer by the front of his jacket, their jacket. It feels like coming home, like unraveling into comfortable threads no longer held taut by a loom but becoming themselves again in their own shape. Finn pulls back for a moment, just enough to say, "You know that everyone loves you, right? The General wouldn't have picked you if she didn't know you could do it."

"I love you," Poe says. He means it. Finn's expression goes shy again, embarrassed, which makes Poe say it again. And again, smiling and laughing as Finn starts kissing him again just to shut him up about it, even though he's laughing too. Poe can't help that he cries in the middle of laughing. "I didn't know if I'd ever get to tell you. I think I've loved you since the first time I saw you."

"Well," Finn says, "It's not like it's a one-way current." He presses his forehead against Poe's. "I'll come back. I'm not leaving forever."

"I know." Poe closes his eyes again, hands resting on Finn's shoulders. "I mean, BB-8 would be devastated if anything happened to you."

Finn laughs. "Yeah," he says. "Just BB-8, though."

Poe opens his eyes and looks at Finn from just far enough away that he can make out each detail of his face without having to lose any body proximity. "You really think I can do this?"

"You think I can?"

"Like that's even a question." But it's a relief. "I was upset when you left," he whispers. 

"I know." 

"Even though I knew it had nothing to do with me or this. I'm sorry."

"I missed you. Rey did too, but it wasn't the same," Finn says, and he kisses Poe's cheek, the corner of his mouth, his lips, and Poe kisses back, doesn't know why he hasn't spent every moment of his life kissing Finn like this. 

And he knows that probably by tomorrow, Finn and Rey are going to be taking off again. The rain will have stopped, and the sun peaking through gray clouds for the first time in weeks will be enough to make everyone a little more lighthearted, even Wedge Antilles. It feels less catastrophic this time. And when he's able to kiss Finn before he leaves, he feels him saying "May the Force be with you" and has the sense for the first time in a while he's not going to get shot down the second he gets up into the atmosphere.


End file.
